Bill McCarthy wrote:
Hello Vim Developers,
The help files specifies (see :help modeline):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are two forms of modelines. The first form:
[text]{white}{vi:|vim:|ex:}[white]{options}
[text] any text or empty
{white} at least one blank character (<Space> or <Tab>)
{vi:|vim:|ex:} the string "vi:", "vim:" or "ex:"
[white] optional white space
{options} a list of option settings, separated with white space or ':',
where each part between ':' is the argument for a ":set"
command
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yet most of the distributed help files fail to follow this
format (and are note second form).
Most end with a ':' which does not appear to be permitted
above.
It is. It just adds an empty do-nothing setting at the end.
Others start with 'vim:' without the mandatory white space
preceding it.
As stated in the following help text, the white space is not mandatory before
"vi:" or "vim:" if they start at the left margin. It is still required before
"ex:" to reduce the risk of confusion with "example".
Perhaps the docs should mention that {white} is optional if
[text] is empty - if that is true. And a trailing ':' is
permitted.
It does: Let me quote:
The white space before {vi:|vim:|ex:} is required. This minimizes the chance
that a normal word like "lex:" is caught. There is one exception: "vi:" and
"vim:" can also be at the start of the line (for compatibility with version
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
3.0). Using "ex:" at the start of the line will be ignored (this could be
short for "example:").
Also, for the second form, the same comment applies to its
{white}. It should also be mentioned that the mandatory ':'
is preceded by [white] (optional white space).
That is implicit: a ":set" command can be followed by any amount of whitespace
before being terminated by a | " or linebreak.
<quote>
The second form (this is compatible with some versions of Vi):
[text]{white}{vi:|vim:|ex:}[white]se[t] {options}:[text]
[text] any text or empty
{white} at least one blank character (<Space> or <Tab>)
{vi:|vim:|ex:} the string "vi:", "vim:" or "ex:"
[white] optional white space
se[t] the string "set " or "se " (note the space)
{options} a list of options, separated with white space, which is the
argument for a ":set" command
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: a colon
[text] any text or empty
</quote>
My options.txt is the following:
*options.txt* For Vim version 7.0. Last change: 2007 Jan 17
Best regards,
Tony.
--
Am I ranting? I hope so. My ranting gets raves.
